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07 June 2016

Betty was raised in the US Northwest, one of five children. He was initially
permitted to dress as a girl, but his parents divorced when he was five, and the
step-father objected to the cross-dressing.

At 15, Betty was raped. At 16 she read about Christine Jorgensen and knew
what she wanted. She had seen the Jewel Box Review when it came to town, and a
close friend had obtained a position there as a chorus boy. After winning first
prize at a local Halloween ball she sent photographs to the friend at Jewel Box
Review, and got back a wire from the manager offering a job.

She grew her hair to shoulder length, which led to complications when out in
male guise – this being over a decade before men began growing their hair long.
After a two-month club residency, the troupe played Betty’s home town, and then
she was laid off.

She asked her parents to permit that she have a sex change – she being a
minor – but they refused, and at their request she visited a psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist discovered what Betty already knew: she was androphilic and
desperately wanted to become a woman. She continued to find find work as a
female impersonator.

At age 20, after a period of despondency at not having a female body, he
decided to return to being a man, cut his hair short and then volunteered to
join the US Navy. He was almost rejected when the medical inspection discovered
the old rape, but he asserted that he had been a victim, and was accepted. He
was assigned to record keeping, and deployed to Japan, where he quickly
discovered the gay bars, and then a male geisha house. Citing his female
impersonator experience, he was taken on as a male geisha. She had a thrill when
several of her shipmates came into the bar, but they did not recognize her. Back
in the US he had an affair with a man in Oklahoma City.

One day after being honorably discharged she was back on the stage as a
female impersonator. During a nine-month engagement at a “well-known club” in
New York, she met two performers who had transitioned, and knew instantly that
she wanted to do the same. She grew her hair again, and started going out as a
woman, quite successfully even before starting female hormones. When her show
went on tour, she stayed in New York to continue hormone treatment. She found
another job as an impersonator-dancer at a “major nightspot”.

Late in 1961 she was invited to the table of a man, an ambassador of a Latin
American country, who invited her first to have a drink, and then offered to pay
for her transformation. He “took me to an internationally famous
endocrinologist, whose prices I could never have afforded”. She also underwent
electrolysis to eliminate her facial hair.

A year later, July 1962, she was ready for surgery, and the ambassador
arranged a trip to Casablanca. In Paris she was joined by another impersonator
making the same journey. The cost at the Casablanca clinic was US$1250. The
operation apparently went well. However a week later when she was back in Paris,
she suffered continual vaginal bleeding, and went to a US hospital. A week of
douching fixed the problem. On return to the US, Betty felt obliged to explain
to immigration why she had only female clothes in her suitcase: that she was a professional female impersonator.

For a few months she worked as a prostitute, “to prove to myself that I was
really a woman”, but then found such work distasteful. She worked as a
salesgirl, and as a fashion model. She finally won acceptance from her mother
and step-father. She started writing, with the aid of professional writer, her
autobiography. During the mid-1960s she acted as a confessor and adviser to
other transsexuals in the city.

The Transsexual Lives Appendix to Harry Benjamin’s book by REL Masters says that
“Betty” is a pseudonym, although she uses it for herself in her autobiographical
segment. Other than that we do not have a name for her.

It is a problem for the historian that Betty does not give the name of the
clubs where she works, or the doctors that she went to, although the
“internationally famous endocrinologist, whose prices I could never have
afforded” is obviously Benjamin and the surgeon in Casablanca is obviously Dr Burou. If there is any information about her after 1966, it is not found in that
we do not have her name. Is the “well-known club” in New York the 82 Club?

Jan Morris also had need of further medical attention after returning from Dr
Burou’s clinic.

One wonders if the unnamed ambassador asked for anything, sexual of otherwise
in return. However we have come across another rich man, Rex/Gloria
who paid for younger trans women to go to Dr Burou without such requests.

The information about Betty is in two parts. An excerpt from her unpublished
autobiography, and a clinical overview by Masters. Despite having her account to
consult, Masters is sloppy with facts. He puts her first attempt at surgery,
which was vetoed by the parents, before the first period of working as an
impersonator; he says that Betty joined the Army rather than the Navy. Also he
continues to refer to Betty as ‘he’ even after surgery.

2 comments:

Betty was an interviewee in an article called 'The Transsexual Operation,' April 1967 issue of Esquire, where she is given the pseudonym Suzanne. Apparently HB brought this subject into contact with the writer, Tom Buckley. Buckley was the NYTimes reporter who had covered the Hopkins clinic story a few months earlier.

I agree with Sallie that Suzanne and Betty are probably the same person. As Sallie noted to me in an email, Suzanne's benefactor is said to be a European eccentric rather than a Latin American ambassador. Sallie suggests that it might be Salvadore Dali, who did mentor, or at least associate with quite a lot of trans women: April Ashley, Amanda Lear, Mario Montez, International Chrysis, Manuela Trasobares, Yeda Brown.

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About Zagria

I have a social science degree. I spent several years in the 70s doing Gay Lib counselling, and moved on to organizing trans groups. I was rejected by the Clarke Institute (now CAMH) in the mid 1980s, probably because I do not match either of their stereotypes, but was accepted by Russel Reid on our first meeting in late 1987, and had surgery from James Dalrymple some months later. I have mainly worked as an IT consultant. I have been with the same husband for 45 years.